ourselves?(cheers)? as part of the British Empire, united to us, although they may be dispersed throughout the world, by ties of kindred, of religion, of history, and of language, and joined to us by the seas that formerly seemed to divide us. (Cheers.)
But the British Empire is not confined to the self-governing colonies and the United Kingdom. It includes a much greater area, a much more numerous population in tropical climes, where no considerable European settlement is possible, and where the native population must always vastly outnumber the white inhabitants; and in these cases also the same change has come over the Imperial idea. Here also the sense of possession has given place to a different sentiment?the sense of obligation. We feel now that our rule over these territories can only be justified if we can show that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people?(cheers)?and I maintain that our rule does, and has, brought security and peace and comparative prosperity to countries that never knew these blessings before. (Cheers.)
In carrying out this work of civilisation we are fulfilling what I believe to be our national mission, and we are finding scope for the exercise of those faculties and qualities which have made of us a great governing race. (Cheers.) I do not say that our success has been perfect in every case, 1 do not say that all our methods have been beyond reproach; but I do say that in almost every instance in which the rule of the Queen has been established and the great Pax Britannica5 has been enforced, there has come with it greater security to life and property, and a material improvement in the condition of the bulk of the population. (Cheers.) No doubt, in the first instance, when these conquests have been made, there has been bloodshed, there has been loss of life among the native populations, loss of still more precious lives among those who have been sent out to bring these countries into some kind of disciplined order, but it must be remembered that that is the condition of the mission we have to fulfil.
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* * * You cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs; you cannot destroy the practices of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have
1. Critics of imperial expansion who advocated British Empire as a natural process. James sharply limiting the scope and responsibilities of Anthony Froude (1818-1894), English author and the British Empire. historian (see p. 1621). 2. Allusion to the Gospels, especially Matthew 4. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South 3.3; the phrase is usually interpreted as referring Africa. to John the Baptist's prophecies of the coming of 5. British peace (Latin), which the British Empire Jesus. supposedly imposed on its colonial possessions (by 3. Sir John Robert Seeley (1834 -1895), English analogy with the pax Romana of the Roman historian, essayist, and author of The Expansion of Empire). England (1883), which portrays the growth of the
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163 2 / EMPIRE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, 1 think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success?(cheers)?in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupe6?expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilisation and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced. (Cheers.) But no doubt such a state of things, such a mission as I have described, involve heavy responsibility. In the wide dominions of the Queen the doors of the temple of Janus7 are never closed?(hear, hear)?and it is a gigantic task that we have undertaken when we have determined to wield the sceptre of empire. Great is the task, great is the responsibility, but great is the honour?(cheers); and I am convinced that the conscience and the spirit of the country will rise to the height of its obligations, and that we shall have the strength to fulfil the mission which our history and our national character have imposed upon us. (Cheers.)
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1897 1897
6. All areas of British exploration on the African incorporated into Nigeria; and Nupe, an area of continent during the last decades of the 19th cen-western Africa that is now part of Nigeria. tury: Nyassaland (or Nyasaland), a region of south-7. Twin-faced Roman god of doorways. The doors eastern Africa that constitutes modern-day to his temple near the Roman Forum were kept Malawi'; Ashanti (also Asante, Ashantee), a west-open during wartime and closed during times of ern African state located in the territory of present-peace. day Ghana; Benin, a state in western Africa later J. A. HOBSON John Atkinson Hobson (1858?1940), the distinguished Liberal economist and author,
first taught classics and then worked as a lecturer in English literature and economics
for the Oxford University Extension Delegacy and for the London Society for the Exten
sion of University Teaching, before becoming a freelance writer. His many books include Problems of Poverty (1891), The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (1894), The Problem of the Unemployed (1896), and John Ruskin, Social Reformer (1898).
From Imperialism: A Study
[THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPERIALISM]
The curious ignorance which prevails regarding the political character and tendencies of Imperialism cannot be better illustrated than by the following passage from a learned work upon 'The History of Colonisation':' 'The extent of British dominion may perhaps be better imagined than described, when the fact is appreciated that, of the entire land surface of the globe, approximately
1. H. C. Morris, The History of Colonization (1900), vol. 2, p. 80 [Hobson's note]. The work's full title is The History of Colonization from the Earliest Times to the Present Day.
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HOBSON: IMPERIALISM: A STUDY / 1633
one-fifth is actually or theoretically under that flag, while more than one-sixth of all the human beings living in this planet reside under one or the other type of English colonisation. The names by which authority is exerted are numerous, and processes are distinct, but the goals to which this manifold mechanism is working are very similar. According to the climate, the natural conditions and the inhabitants of the regions affected, procedure and practice differ. The means are adapted to the situation; there is not any irrevocable, immutable line of policy: from time to time, from decade to decade, English statesmen have applied different treatments to the same territory. Only one fixed rule of action seems to exist; it is to promote the interests of the colony to the utmost, to develop its scheme of government as rapidly as possible, and eventually to elevate it from the position of inferiority to that of association. Under the charm of this beneficent spirit the chief colonial establishments of Great Britain have already
